I decided to watch
American Psycho as I hadn't seen the movie in quite a long time. (For those who have never seen it, I would recommend it.) Realizing that the movie does not fully cover the all of the material in the novel on which it is based, I later plan to read the book by Bret Easton Ellis. Since the movie features a gratuitous amount of sex and violence, I watched the movie through this lens to see if I could determine any sort of theme that linked them together. Patrick Bateman (portrayed by Christian Bale) appears to be a wealthy investment banker on the surface level, but he is losing control of his passion for murder and sex. His use of prostitutes to fulfill his strange role-playing represents the sex, but the acts that he puts these women through are clearly violent in nature and unquestionably a form of abuse. The presence of violence satisfies him more than the actual possession of women. I won't spend time making comparisons to Faith of the Buffy series, but it is interesting to note some of the similarities between the two characters. Neither of these characters has much control of their careers (Patrick Bateman is an investment banker to "fit in" and Faith is a slayer by fate), yet they still share a common need for intertwining sex and violence as a way of truly fulfilling themselves. I never really took much time to analyze how sex and violence are presented in films, but the theme are intertwined in the plots of many of the films we see. Although few go to the extremes of
American Psycho and the Bateman's use of women as mere targets of physical/psychological violence, there is something to be said about the ways humans link sex and violence. How do you view violence and sex as portrayed in
American Psycho?
I actually wrote a post on American Psycho a while ago, focusing on the anonymity of the various characters as they try to fit in to an amoral society.
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The presentation of sex and violence could easily have been overdone, but I think the director did a great job in balancing the two and making the scenes darkly humorous. The scene where Bateman flexes in the mirror while having sex with a prostitute is classic.
That scene is iconic, or at least i like to think it is. But I did really like this movie. Although I dont think it was received that well by critics, it has turned into a cult classic. Its humorous yet dark look at a sociopathic murderer is both disturbing and actually really funny. I dont know if people really take into account how funny this movie is. One scene I love is when Bateman is in a room comparing business cards with all of his co-workers. Scenes like this allow us to look into the mind of Bateman and see that he is just looking for approval and satisfaction. This becomes especially apparent at the end of the movie, but I wont give that part away.
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